Spanish fonetics are very easy: there are 5 vocalic sounds (one for each vowel) and 18 consonant sounds. It makes a total of 23 sounds.
The alphabet: it is the same as in English, but with only one more letter: the famous ñ. Sometimes, it is considered that ch, ll and rr are part of the alphbet too, but they are combinations of letters.
The vowels: There are 5 vowels (y isn’t considered a vowel even though sometimes it makes an /i/ sound). All the sounds are open.
A makes an /a/ sound, such as cat
E makes an /e/ sound, such as ten
I makes an /i/ sound, such as feet
O makes an /o/ sound, such as dog
U makes an /u/ sound, such as zoo
The consonants: this is when things gets a little bit complicated. Let’s start by sounds with one letter:
/d/ in the letter d, such as dog
/f/ in the letter f, such as fantasy
/l/ in the letter l, such as long
/m/ in the letter m, such as mom
/n/ in the letter n, such as nun
/p/ in the letter p, such as possible
/s/ in the letter s, such as snake
/t/ in the letter t, such as in tea
/ks/in the letter x, such as in Max
/ɲ/ in the letter ñ. The letter ñ sounds like you are saying “ny” very quickly. For example, the word ñoñerías would be /nyonyerias/ but said very quickly so that sounds becomes only 1 (/ɲoɲerias/).
Now, let’s see the specific cases. Let’s start by b and v.
In English, b and v have separate sounds and that’s difficult to a Spanish speaker who is learning English. Well, in Spanish they have the same sound /b/, such the b in English. That would mean that barco is pronounced /barco/ and uvas is pronounced /ubas/ as well.
What happens with h? And with W and Y?
H is a deaf letter. That’s means that h has no sound, unlike English. When we are saying helado it’s /elado/.
Y has two sounds: a vocalic and a consonant. When the y is placed at the end of a word or it is on its own ( the conjuction “y”) it sounds like /I/. For example: rey /rei/. When it is at the beggining of a word it is most likely to have a consonant sound (/y/), for example: yate /yate/. This sound may also be confusing becuse of the double letters “ll” that have a similar sound. We will see it on another post.
W is pronounced as in English because all the words with w in Spanish are mostly English words we stole.
G and J. Love-hate relationship.
Ok so, these letters are difficult. Why would we have two letters with the same sound? (Such as b and v). This letters not only have the same sound /x/ but the letter g has another sound /g/. Normally, this j letter has the /x/ sound: /xugar/. But when the g is followed by -e or -I it has a /x/ sound as well: /xeranio/. The letter g in all the other cases sounds like /g/: /gato, gota/. When the g is followed by -ue and -ui has a /g/ sound but the u is not pronounced: /gitarra/. What a mess!
The last and most complicated! C, k, q and z. Let’s save this from another post!
I know explaining fonetics in a written mode it’s difficult. Would you be interested in a video explaining ALL the fonetics in Spanish?
